West Bengal tops Indian states with maximum shortage of traffic police personnel, followed by Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, according to "Data on Police Organisation Report 2021" released by the Bureau of Police Research and Development. The data, which is of 2021, shows that 51 per cent posts are vacant in the traffic department of Bengal.
Gujarat with 49 per cent and Madhya Pradesh with 44 per cent rank second and third in terms of vacant posts. Rajasthan with 43 per cent, Maharashtra (33%), Tamil Nadu (20%), Karnataka (15%) and Delhi (12%) are among the top eight states facing shortage of staff in the traffic department.
If seen from the national perspective, 29 per cent vacant posts in the traffic police are yet to be filled. As per the data, out of sanctioned strength of 1,02,929 personnel, only 73,287 are presently deployed. 29,642 posts are lying vacant.
West Bengal, which has the highest percentage of vacant posts, is being managed by around 5,911 personnel as against a required strength of 12,006. This translates to a shortfall of 6,095 traffic police personnel.
In Gujarat, 3,869 personnel are deployed as against a sanctioned strength of 7,513. Out of the required strength of 5,518 traffic personnel, Madhya Pradesh has only 3,094, according to Bureau of Police Research and Development data.
The numbers seem more stark when seen in perspective with the number of traffic accidents that took place in 2020.
The report noted that more than 3.66 lakh accidents took place due to traffic violations in 2020 that killed more than 1.31 lakh people. Over-speeding, drunken driving, driving on the wrong side, jumping red light, use of mobile phone were some of the major traffic violations.
As per the report, there were 2,65,343 accidents due to over-speeding in 2020, killing 91,239 people and injuring 2,55,663 others. Driving on the wrong side led to 20,228 accidents, killing 7,332 people and injuring 19,481. A total of 3,322 people died and 7,845 were injured in drunken driving accidents in 2020. A total of 8,355 such accidents were recorded.
The report also mentioned that as of January 2021, there were 5.62 lakh vacancies in the police force. However, the overall police numbers between 2010 and 2020 increased by 32 per cent -- from 15.6 lakh to 20.7 lakh.
Bihar has the highest number of overall vacancies at 41.8 per cent and Uttarakhand at 6.8 per cent. Vacancies in Bihar and Maharashtra increased from 33.9 to 41.8 and 11.7 to 16.3 per cent respectively.
Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala are the only states that were able to reduce their vacancies at the constabulary and officer levels, the report said.
(With inputs from Trithesh Nanda)